初一

Once a year, there are as many shoes as there are people.

Once a year, life is caught in a postulating pause. It's as if the passage of time is more pronounced, less subtle; more effect and less cause.

I still remember the days when my brother, cousin and I would be playing in our aunt's 'Lego Room' at these yearly affairs. 太婆 would walk in, her smile so nurturing it punishes the austere face of the wall, before sitting down and telling us in Cantonese, "Xiu peng yao, tai po kar lei mon hong bao."

On this day, however, 太婆 merely sits up and wonders aloud, "Erng ji bin gor da bin gor" ("I've forgotten who's who"). When we pay her our respects, we introduce ourselves. She remembers little.

Today, we aren't in the play room. 太婆 can no longer walk at will. Perhaps ninety-four 'yearly affairs' later one seeks, in watching people go about their own ways, an odd assurance.

So let me assure you, 太婆, let me assure you and your daughter, our grandmother - who tears when she realises that it's exactly thirty years ago that her two sons were taking their A and O Levels, just as my brother and I are this year - let me assure you that when you both have long forgotten, that when your memory is lost to age, I will introduce 'us' to you again and again, for as many times as it takes; that when the past tempts you, eludes you, forsakes you - I will weave coherence into your confusion.

There will be as much sense as there are shoes.

Come on, now - we have so much catching up to do.

Q&A

You may not want to barge in through the chimney
'Cos at least Opportunity knocks at the door.

We'll put out the milk and the cookies
We'll sit by the tree with bated breath
But Age will serve to tell us
That it's another no-show;

For silver hair live out our golden years
Before our bronzed skin is taken
By the things we fear.

Eyes will glisten and
Hearts will listen
As radios speak of
A Berlin night of terror
After Aleppo waited in horror
and the world didn't seem to bother.

Santa,
Santa
For all your gifts
Your hand-crafted blessings to Mankind
- does world peace happen to be
one of them?

I know
they say everything is nicer in
black and white
But we're all still after colour,
chasing rainbows we cannot ride.

To paint is to taint but to sketch,
To sketch
is a means of drawing hope
from our deepest reserves and sometimes
Sometimes
That's not a bad thing.

Dust the dirt off your carousel
Whisper
Shout
(Sound like you mean it)
There is plenty
to be Merry about.

In time gone by

If Dream had a best friend it'd be the acrid smell that rain leaves - no, hangs - in the air, suspended not by wires and ropes but nagging persistence and a little companion called Hope.

If Dream had a face it'd be nondescript; the kind which gives little away.

If Dream had eyes they would be soulful like dirt, and you could look into them, and at that very moment you look into them you would see into a world of possibilities. They'd just be a vision, in a dark, extensive, elusive experience beneath his eyes.

If Dream had a hobby, it'd be running, so no one could ever catch him (but they'd all keep on chasing).

If Dream had a dream it'd be made up of the things he fears the most, and yet it takes courage to fear.

If Dream had a favourite colour it'd be blue because the sky is the limit - it's just that there's no one to tell us there's nothing up in it.

If Dream had one last day on Earth the planets would all stop spinning and watch with wry smiles on their faces; time will play a fool, and Dream will lend himself to the very air he breathed, slowly carrying him beyond existence.

Fortune's always hiding

No moon is too blue,
and yet no flag too white
You join this late game
of darts and sights.

Gaiety glances are shot

and questions abound

But they're cunningly cerebral

And it's loss that I've found

Words have a curious way

Of reigning themselves in

Absent then, of course, are

The things I truly mean.

To keep another's words

In a time-tested safe,

And to think they keep yours

Takes a measure of faith.

When silence glares at you
with its head in the clouds
You begin to wonder
if thinking's allowed.

(What's worse...)

Happy endings are a problem

We can never mend, for

Whatever happened to

Being happy before we end?

Untitled

Maybe

if we ignored the darkness

Then

the light would have no excuse

for not showing up.

Ghosts in city lights

Perhaps words
are people
with bipolar disorder;
now they are dying to be said
when we are all living to die;
the manic meandering
through lost fields of coherence

then, moments later,
not looking too wise
nor frightfully fearless
- they are here to stay

and yet they lie in wait
still they stand in line
to traverse the sky
side by side
on another day

51

The thing about birthdays is, time
- in all its fleetingness - heaves to a halt
and stops to smile; an aesthete pausing
to admire a painting in a museum of
memories we hold onto by the string of
a kite performing pirouettes in the weighty air.

Birthdays are, to too many people,
a lesson in the art of appreciating the ones
we too often fail to appreciate;
celebrating the triumphs
we too often sour with defeats.

But you can't do justice to a cup of ice lemon tea
without a piece of lemon.

.

Your birthday bash will be back at the Kallang this year - I hope
you still remember those times, even if
it's now a dome that we can't really call a
home; an architectural feat to behold, yet
one without a
soul
Is the grass greener there?

Tonight we shall sing for you,
all 5 million of us, and
25 in Brazil will wonder
who will sing for them. They will

run, jump and fight

for you

They may even watch you - yes,
you and your birthday bash, but
you will not watch them.
They may be in Rio
but there is to be no Redeeming.

You're in a mid-life crisis.
An ecosystem of tastes, ebbing
away - you see, it takes more than
six letters to spell 'hawker'.
A heartland wonderland, where
kids come and play - football
and catching into the dark of day.
But it is no more; today you build barriers
yesterday it was the railings
- how long before you stop
voiding the void in our decks?

I'd like to think that when we age
we leave a part of ourselves behind -
a morsel of the birthday cake
left uneaten, a crumb
carried away by the ants
into holes we cannot see,
spaces we cannot enter.

You're still the same, yet not
quite the same; you're a flapping bird
in an endless game. You try to paint
your feathers here and there:
a ferris wheel, a casino,
and the lavish marriage of nature
and the man-made, where trees
can feel more super than they already
are. Lewis Hamilton will tear the streets. Some
even say you've put on a short skirt and bought
a pair of Oakleys you thought you'd look
good in. But what if I told you that
it's okay to grey, that when the tides
come in and the Merlion has had
its laugh, I don't expect to see a
fifteen-minute fireworks display.
What if I told you that it's actually a pity
that people come from all over the world, and
they board the Flyer, as if they can
see the real you from up there. All I'm saying is,
don't try to be something
you are
naught.

And I know I'll grumble, l'll tempt -

no, test

the line your Father drew in the

Changi sand. I'll curse myself for 

knowing you, for writing to you at all. But

I also know that when all is said and done,

that when the bright lights and awe-ful
sights have had their say, you are still
that crescent moon that follows me in the car.

In a chorus of 'lahs' and 'lehs' I find the you
I know - not a hipster hyperbole but a
no-nonsense nanny
not a H&M human Christmas tree but a
discount-preying
4D-praying
parking coupon-strategising
queue-curious
bee hoon loon on
a daily prescription of Yakult.

You are the number one of
number ones
or at least you try to be;
fyi, NUS is top in Asia,
which is, frankly, not surprising, given
their avant-garde orientation camps.
On to the more obscene,
let's see whose neighbourhood can
put up the most flags.

Speaking of flags - you are the
commuter-harassing
tin can-juggling
uniformed student
with the kempt haircut
and "non-striking" shoes - that is,
if there's a good reason it's called "Flag Day"
and shoes could actually go on strike.
(SMRT can help with that)

Like all middle-aged souls
you are desperately trying to find
yours, only,
you don't have to.
You don't have to identify
your identity or define
what defines you
because you just are.

Alpinists never use the word 'conquer'
so please don't climb the mountain to get
to the top
climb it
because it is there.

You may have put on shades.
You may have dyed your hair.
But
You are still that crescent moon that follows me in the car.
Only a slender crescent, yet
ever so
whole.

--
First time writing in free verse on here so please let me know what you think...

P.S. Sorry, the stanza on Team Singapore at the Rio Olympics was written before Mediacorp announced its last-minute deal with rights holders to broadcast the Games 'live'.